Category Archives: Self-Publishing

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Today I wanted to do something a little different. A few weeks ago a fellow YouTuber/author, Kristen Martin, launched a webinar series called Hustle Smarter, Not Harder. The aim of the webinar is to help you accomplish your goals and learn what steps you need to make your dream into a reality. The webinar is split into three parts that in total add up to about an hour. When you purchase the first webinar, you get the other two for free. You also get a great little workbook!

A Little About Webinars…

Webinars are used a lot in businesses and are usually recorded live so the audience can ask questions along the way. Usually, they’re just a boring slideshow with the presenter talking. Kristen decided to pre-record the webinar, which was a great decision on her part because instead of having to watch a boring slideshow, you get to see her speaking, and sometimes a slide or two. You can watch Kristen’s webinar whenever you want because it is pre-recorded, so there’s no excuse of not being able to fit it into your schedule.

Why Did I Buy?

I love webinars! My job offers them all the time and I try my best to attend/watch as many as I can. I was a little hesitant to buy Kristen’s webinar because 1). I’ve never had to buy a webinar before, my job always paid for them. 2). I’ve done a lot of my own research into life-balancing, career launching, business building, ect. I didn’t think I’d be able to learn anything new from the webinar. In the end, I decided you can never learn enough so I decided to invest in my career and purchase the webinar!

You Will:

Pinpoint what is stopping you from achieving your dream

Initiate positive thinking

Discover your goals and how to make them attainable

Learn how to blend your passion with your dream career

Learn how to find/pinpoint your audience for your passion/career

Find what you’re wasting your time on

Learn how to prioritize

And lastly you will learn how to take all this and bring it together to launch your career/product

The Pros!

Don’t need to take notes! Like I said, Kristen gives you a workbook, which is basically the whole webinar in written form. If she says something that you think is great, instead of having to write it down, just highlight it in your notebook! (I printed mine out because I like having physical copies).

You find yourself. Kristen had a lot of little exercises in her workbook that force you to fill in blanks, decide what’ important to you, and how you can improve your schedule. There are some points in the workbook that are really inspiring and I’m not lying when I say I might just print out a few quotes and hang them on my corkboard over my desk.

Part 3 was my favorite video, though it was the shortest. It tells you how to launch your business/product from start to end. There’s even a checklist!

The Cons?

No pause button. The downside to the webinar platform is that once the video starts, it keeps going. There were a few points I had a hit of inspiration and had to write it down really quick because I didn’t want to miss anything in the video.

In total the three videos are an hour, but I’m not sure what they are split up. The first two were pretty long, but the last one was short. I split up watching the videos across a couple of days because I didn’t know how much time I needed to set aside.

Would I recommend?

Yes! My cons are not so much cons, but technical difficulties. If you’re ready to take your dream seriously, let Kristen’s webinar inspire you.

If you’d like to sign up, visit thatsmarthustle.com, but make sure to do it before August 10th when the sale ends.

So there’s this tag called AuthorTube WIP Tag and I was tagged by the lovely Natalia Leigh. Unfortunately for me, good for all of you, the tag asks questions about my latest work in progress. I wanted to wait until I had a least the first draft of my third novel done before I started revealing information but I figured, eh, why not? So here we have it! The official title reveal of my novel! (Coming to a bookshelf near you)

What is the working title of my book?

To be determined! Right not I call it novel #3 because I’m not original.

Where did the idea for your book come from?

Both my grandparents have/had a form of dementia. I wanted to write a book that reverberates around the themes of desperation to cling onto your loved ones and also the fact that when someone has dementia you loose them twice. First mentally, then physically.

What genre is your work in progress?

Thriller? We’ll have to wait and find out!

Choose the actors for your movie rendition.

I don’t what TV or movies enough to have a list of actors I love…I live in a bubble.

One sentence synopsis of your book.

Sam’s house was on fire the night Willow reached her breaking point, and now she doesn’t care who’s life she ruins when she attempts to find a cure to Alzheimer’s disease.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

My goal is to query agents once I’m happy with the outcome of the manuscript. I feel I’ve finally reached the point where I have enough experience and a big enough platform that maybe, just maybe, a publisher will take me on!

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I’m in the first draft phase still, but we’re getting there! I’ve been working on this story since the summer of 2016 but I wasn’t able to get serious about it until recently.

What other books would you compare the story to?

Still Alice by Lisa Genova, in terms of subject matter, not genre. If you haven’t read her novels yet, pick them up! They’re amazing!

Who or what inspired you to write the book?

My grandmother who has frontal temporal dementia (Pick’s Disease) and my Memere who had Alzheimer’s.

What else about your book might peak the reader’s interest?

This novel doesn’t even compare to Essence and I am Mercy. So far, this novel reaches a whole new level (but I may be biased).

What happens when I’m sick for three days? Well, I think I get a little loopy actually. Lookin at this video now, I realize I should never be allowed to film while I’m sick. Luckily, I have Molly to amp up the cute factor in the video while I sound terrible because I’m still working on getting my voice back. Anyways….I outlined my third novel!

I’ve been having terrible progress with my newest novel for two reasons: I’m busy and I’m lazy. I also had a lot of writer’s doubt, aka I thought of giving up being a writer completely. With outlining this novel I’ve learned once again why I love writing and why I’m going to keep pushing to get better.

My third novel has 31 chapters outlined (a 6-page outline!) and very soon I’ll be starting the actual writing process for it!

Oh marketing. It is a headache and a half. There’s so much to do, so much to learn! And the market is constantly changing so once you feel like you understand how it works, you have to change your game plan again. So read some good books on marketing to keep your head in the game.

Last week your guys heard me talk about my job a little bit and how I do a lot of non-fiction writing for it. In case you didn’t know I work as a marketing and PR intern at a large hospital in Massachusetts. I’ve been able to learn an endless amount of skills from this job, from marketing press releases, to just the ins and outs of working in a corporate world. Some of these skills I’ve even been able to incorporate into my novel marketing (it would be more helpful of course if I had a little more time to implement these skills).

I love OneNote! It’s great for taking notes in class but also for plotting novels! Who knew? Use it to organize your note on your characters, chapters, and setting. This is only the tip of the iceberg for OneNote, so be sure to explore it thoroughly!

We all know the more you practice something, the better you get. Same goes for writing. I’ve published two novels, so over the years not only has my writing style changed, but so has the quality of writing. I look back at Essence and realize how far I’ve come as a writer. And Essence not being up to par with my current writing isn’t a bad thing! A little embarrassing maybe, but it shows how hard I’ve worked. And it just makes me that much more excited to publish my new novel!

I laughed I cried, I was a mess! A ten hour book signing/expo and I couldn’t have had a better experience! Thank you to everyone who came! I met a ton of great authors and I hope to see more you next year! Check out the vlog to see clips from the expo and to see me and other authors on the panel!